Radical innovation in established organizations: Being a knowledge predator

  • Authors:

  • Annick Castiaux

  • Affiliations:

  • Business Administration Department, University of Namur, 8 Rempart de la Vierge, B-5000 Namur, Belgium

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Engineering and Technology Management
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Considering the strategic importance of knowledge building as the roots of any radical innovation, this paper focuses on the particular position of established organizations, which are faced with the necessity to explore new and tacit knowledge, while simultaneously exploiting existing competitive advantages depending on their existing knowledge and skills. To manage this paradox, established organizations can find help in partnerships with explorative organizations complementing their exploitative core competencies. With the well-known Lotka-Volterra system, I propose a simple model to demonstrate that a predation relationship is the most relevant to acquire new knowledge from partners and thus allow radical innovation.